To the surprise of almost no one, Washington is having serious issues with its pitching, currently ranked 15th in WHIP, 15th in quality starts and 14th in ERA in the NL. Shawn Hill has been excellent and Jason Bergmann has been a revelation (for now), but the rest of the rotation is a mess. Matt Chico is suffering from serious control problems; “ace” John Patterson has been simply awful and is dealing with biceps soreness; and Jerome Williams has landed on the DL with a sprained ankle, sparing the team of his ugly command issues for the time being. As we discussed just before spring training started, Washington’s strategy was to go with the cast of thousands approach to build a rotation. Well, it may be time to reshuffle those deck chairs on this particular sinking ship, but don’t count on Chris Michalak getting the call. You may recall that Michalak emerged out of the blue last year to help out the Reds, but he’s currently on the DL for Triple-A Columbus with a strained quadriceps and wasn’t exactly off to a blazing start before getting hurt (6.00 ERA). So who do the Nats turn to? Joel Hanrahan, projected to make the rotation, but slapped around in spring training and sent down, has been superb (1-1, 1.69 ERA, 0.94 WHIP in four starts), but he’s also on the DL. Another option is Emiliano Fruto, 2-1, 3.08, who has been virtually unhittable (10 hits in 26 1/3 innings), but his control problems are holding him back (20 walks) and obviously the Nats already have enough pitchers who can’t find the strike zone. That leaves veteran lefty Mike Bacsik (1-2, 3.16), who hasn’t been dominant (26 hits in 25 2/3 IP), but you have to love that command (21 K/3 BB). He’s only recently been forced into the Columbus rotation because of injuries, but he may soon be needed more with the parent club the way things are going.
By RotoRob
This entry was posted
on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 5:47 pm and is filed under BASEBALL, Fantasy Notes, RotoRob.
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